TITLE:
A Critical Appraisal of Grice’s Cooperative Principle
AUTHORS:
Atefeh Hadi
KEYWORDS:
Grice’s Maxims; Cooperative Principle; Pragmatics
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Modern Linguistics,
Vol.3 No.1,
March
29,
2013
ABSTRACT: Grice’s most influential contribution to linguistics is his theory of implicatures. He describes communication as adhering to what he calls the Cooperative Principle (CP) and argues that a basic underlying assumption we make when we speak to one another is that we are trying to cooperate to construct meaningful conversations (1975). Grice’s Cooperative Principle has been a central and controversial theme in pragmatics. A major source of controversy associated with the CP is that the term “cooperation” is open to different interpretations. In order to develop a thorough understanding of the concept, the CP and conversational implicatures should be studied within the context of Grice’s work. The present article is an attempt to critically examine various representations and interpretations of Grice’s Cooperative Principle.